Emancipators of the Year

Quentin Tarantino and the Stars of Django Unchained

From left: longtime Quentin company member Jackson, Tarantino, and Oscar winners Foxx and Waltz

According to Jamie Foxx—and
despite what you may have heard so
far—Quentin Tarantino's latest genre
mash-up, the spaghetti-Western-
slash-blaxploitation-saga Django
Unchained, is a love story, not
a revenge fantasy. Foxx, who plays
a freed slave on a violent odyssey
through the antebellum South to
find his unemancipated wife, lowers
his voice to a guttural whisper
to imitate Tarantino's constant
reminders of his motivation: "You
want your woman!" His partner in
the journey is Inglourious Basterds
Oscar winner Christoph Waltz—the
duo head up a loaded cast that
also includes Samuel L. Jackson,
Leonardo DiCaprio, and Don
Johnson as vintage QT villains—and
just as he did in Basterds, Waltz
brings to the movie a kind of silky
Continental braininess. But he
may have missed the memo on the
love-story bit. "Quentin's movies
are grand cinematic opera," says
Waltz. "Slavery in this case would
be the great dilemma, and the great
dilemma of the hero is: To avenge or
not to avenge?" This is a Tarantino
flick, so take a wild guess.

On Jackson:
blazer by
John
Varvatos,
shirt by
Dolce &
Gabbana,
tie by
Topman
On Foxx:
vest
by Vivienne
Westwood,
shirt by
Gucci
On Waltz:
suit and vest
by Prada,
bow tie
by Ben Sherman